Cooch Behar, April 17: Migrant workers from Cooch Behar villages are being wooed back with free train tickets to come and vote in the panchayat polls.

Leaders of all political hues have arranged to bring these villagers — most of whom work in north India — home.

Dilli party zindabad rents the air whenever a vehicle carrying the labourers enters a village. Migrant workers are locally known as Dilli parties.

This is not the Lok Sabha or Assembly elections where winning margins are in thousands. Even a single vote matters in the panchayat polls, so the migrant labourers votes are important to us, said Lakshmi Prasad Kalwar, the Congress deputy pradhan of the Gitaldaha gram panchayat in Dinhata.

The Forward Bloc, however, denied that the party had turned its focus on the migrants because of the polls. Our MPs are always inquiring about them, a leader said.

The workers know the reason for the sudden burst of generosity but are not complaining. If I get repeated calls from CPM leaders in my village offering to bear my travel expenses, though only for votes, why should I reject it? asked a villager who works as a tailor in Delhi.